Pakistan's Political Parties is an edited volume that introduces readers to the dizzying political landscape of the world's fifth most populous state. As the editors (Mariam Mufti, Sahar Shafqat and Niloufer Siddiqui) note aptly in their introduction, Pakistan's often turbulent relationship with democracy has taken myriad forms since the country's inception in 1947; four military coups, three constitutions and (only) a dozen general elections in 75 years of independence present quite the opportunity for intellectual unpacking. The editors selected an impressive array of scholars spanning multiple disciplines and subfields to bring their expertise to such an endeavour. The result is a sweeping look at Pakistan's party system through various theoretical and methodological lenses.
The volume is arranged into three parts. The first part, composed of six chapters, is focused on what the editors call the form of political parties in Pakistan. It aims at answering the (rather broad) question: What do Pakistan's major catchall, ethnic, and religious parties look like? Each author tackles either a major party or a set of parties and focuses on key aspects of its structure and history. Among the topics covered are the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and its dance with the military establishment, the intensely personalistic leadership of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the struggles of the Awami Nationalist Party (ANP) with organizational capacity, the decline of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the journey of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from movement to party. Underlying these expositions is the uneasy tension between the facts that party-switching and patron/client relationships are fundamental features of Pakistan's party system and yet party ideology also seems to matter.
The second part, composed of five chapters, is focused on the function of political parties in Pakistan. It is motivated by questions regarding three types of relationships: party/voter linkages (for example: do parties aggregate and represent voter interests? to what extent are these interests defined along ideological lines?), within-party relationships (for example: what role do women play in political parties in Pakistan? can Pakistan's parties elicit loyalty from independent, locally powerful candidates?) and party/party relationships (for example: what role do opposition parties play in the party system?). Taken together, this set of chapters highlights some of the major issues in a weak party system such as Pakistan's. The evidence suggests that voters with closer links to parties are dramatically different from the average voter, that the current system is and will most likely remain candidate-centred and fractionalized, and that parties have little incentive to include female candidates in the seats that matter most.
Finally, the third part of the book—composed of three chapters—focuses on the survival of political parties in an environment as uncertain as Pakistan's. This part addresses questions about how parties survive and what roadblocks they face in a context where other institutions—such as the judiciary and the military—wield significant power. These chapters direct our attention to aspects of governance (such as foreign policy) that are still heavily constrained by non-party actors but also show the ways in which parties remain resilient in the face of powerful unelected contenders.
The primary contributions of this text are twofold. First, it is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the more “mundane” aspects of Pakistani politics that have heretofore received scant attention in the political science literature. The literature on Pakistan that is most read and cited in Western academia tends to be dominated by the study of nuclear weapons, terrorism, or the country's skewed civil/military relations. And while the question of military dominance is still an open and heavily debated one among Pakistan scholars, this question has for too long overshadowed the equally important study of political parties, party/voter linkages, legislatures and elections—an oversight this book both engages with actively and aims to correct. Many of the authors directly address the outsized role of the military in Pakistan's party system but also move the conversation beyond this prevailing frame. The importance of this intentionally fresh perspective cannot be overstated.
Second, the editors did an admirable job at bringing together studies that use a number of disciplinary and empirical approaches. In a data-poor context such as Pakistan—where both state and private actors lack either the capacity or the willingness to collect high-quality data—a multi-methodological approach is the only way to tackle the pressing questions addressed in this book. The authors employ a wide range of methodologies, from ethnography to surveys to semistructured interviews.
I have only two quibbles with this volume. First, it is striking that part 1 of the book is missing a chapter on major parties in Balochistan. This might simply be because no one was available to write such a chapter; Balochistan is difficult to study, not least because the military keeps a vigilant watch on those who attempt to get too deep into its politics. But Balochistan is one of Pakistan's four major provinces, and it seems an oversight not to devote a chapter to the ethnic parties that dominate its political landscape. Second, the editors point to how this volume adds to a burgeoning literature on political parties and party systems in non-Western, developing contexts. But there is little theoretical discussion on where Pakistan falls on the “hybrid regime” spectrum or what the scope conditions of some of the claims are. But these are minor points that should not detract from the major contributions of this volume. It will serve as an excellent resource to all those interested in gaining—and teaching—a broad yet nuanced overview of Pakistan's party system.
